PractiTest Methodology

PractiTest is an end-to-end test management platform. This means that it covers your entire QA process – Requirements, Tests, Test-runs and Issues. Although you can work separately with each module, there is a significant added value to the interaction between the different entities of PractiTest. This interaction provides you with better visibility and control over your end-to-end QA & Testing Process.

PractiTest End-to-End process

An effective Test-Management process works in the following way:

Before you start testing, or even developing an application or service, you first need to know what the requirements are. The requirements provide you with information about the application or system you will later test. For example, one of your system’s requirements can be “enable multiple logins”.

Next, the tests you designwill be based on these requirements. In PractiTest, tests that are saved in the test library can be linked to the appropriate requirements. If your requirement is “enable multiple logins”, the linked test might be to check if you can login with different users from the same machine or browser.

This small test can be part of a larger set of tests, for example – a regression test. In the “Test Sets & Runs” module you create test sets, composed of instances of tests from the test library. Each test can be reused in different test-sets (you might want to test the multiple login feature in a regression test, a sanity test and a smoke test). You can even use the same test instance several times in a single test-set.Once you have your test-set ready, you can run all the relevant tests, and report issues from them. An issue can be a bug, or an enhancement request. The issues you report during these runs will be automatically linked to the test instances they originated from.

You can work with each module seperately – for example, report an issue without linking it to a test. However, the traceability between the different modules helps you to keep track of your application and project’s status. All this information can be viewed later in multiple ways, such as reports and interactive graphs.

PractiTest Entities & Modules

Requirements – Where you store the definition of what your product should be or do. Requirements will serve as the base (or Test Oracle) to define what you should check as part of your verification process; this is why it is recommended you link the requirements and their respective tests (in the Test Library) to denote the traceability between the definition of the feature or attribute and the tests that verifies it.

Tests (in the Test Library) – these are your verification scenarios, composed of steps that define what you want to check as part of your process. The Test Library serves as the repository, where you store and maintain your tests, and the place from where you will choose the test instances to be executed in the Test Sets & Runs module.

Test Sets – A group of test instances that you want to run with a shared objective or characteristic (e.g they test the same area of the system, they will be run at the same time and maybe by the same person, etc).

Test Instances – An instance is similar to a copy of the orinigal test in the Test Library. Each test in the Test Library can have multiple instances in different test sets, or even in the same one.

Runs – In PractiTest you can execute each test instance multiple times. Each execution will have a separate run, where all your steps and actual results are stored. Runs can be linked to issues in order to denote the traceability between the issue and the test where it was detected.

Issues – An issue can be a bug, a task or an enhancement request. Issues can be linked to other issues, they can be linked to requirements to denote that the requirement originated from an issue reported in the system, and to runs to show the scenario where the issue was detected.

Reporting – An intrinsic part of your process is the way you display information to your stakeholders (product managers, testing peers, developers, etc.) PractiTest provides you with multiple channels in order to display this information – custom reports that may be eleborate or very specific, a dashboard allowing graphic representation of your system’s current state, and interactive grids.